Author Topic: Unidentified war planes, explosions in Libyan capital  (Read 297 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

rangerrebew

  • Guest
Unidentified war planes, explosions in Libyan capital
« on: August 18, 2014, 08:02:16 pm »
Unidentified war planes, explosions in Libyan capital

Monday 18 August 2014 15:40

REUTERS
   

 
 

Tripoli residents said they heard several jets flying after midnight, followed by loud explosions. (REUTERS)
 
 
Unidentified war planes flew over the Libyan capital Tripoli and explosions were heard early on Monday, residents said, in what could mark a sharp escalation of more than a month of street fighting between armed factions.
   
 Several Libyan TV channels said planes targeted bases of militiamen from Misrata who have been battling brigades from the western Zintan region to gain control of Tripoli in the worst violence since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011.
   
 Tripoli residents said they heard several jets flying after midnight, followed by loud explosions. No more planes were heard but fighting between militias on the ground resumed in some parts of the city in the morning.
   
 A Zintani source said fighters of his unit saw planes bombing a Misrata position, though Reuters reporters were not immediately able to access the area.
   
 Fighting between brigades from Misrata and Zintan has raged through Tripoli for more than a month, forcing the United Nations, Western and Arab countries to evacuate their embassies and citizens.
   
 But clashes had been limited to ground action with artillery and rockets. None of the militias are believed to own war planes, while the weak central government has only an outdated air force badly in need of repair.
   
 Pro-Misrata news websites accused renegade General Khalifa Haftar who has used some aircraft from an air base under his control in Benghazi to attack militant Islamists in eastern Libya.
   
 Haftar's spokesman declined to comment when Reuters asked whether his planes had attacked Tripoli targets. "We don't have any comment at the moment," Mohamed el Hejazi said.
   
 Government officials were not available and the mobile phone of cabinet spokesman Ahmed Lamine was switched off.
   
 The weak government has no functioning national army and almost no control over Tripoli, with most officials working from Tobruk in Libya's far-east where the new parliament has set up to escape the violence.
   
 An Egyptian security source said air traffic between the two countries had been interrupted for six hours and that Libyan air controllers had cited security reasons.
   


FOREIGN INVOLVEMENT?

 Some Tripoli residents, tired of daily fighting disrupting power and food supplies, hope that NATO would intervene in Libya as it did in 2011 when the alliance sent jets to bomb Gaddafi forces in support of the uprising that toppled him.
   
 Libyan news channels speculated that the country's neighbours might be behind the action overnight.
   
 A U.S. official and an Egyptian security source, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said their countries had not been involved. A NATO official said: "There are no fighter jets under NATO command involved in operations over Libya."
   
 On Sunday, the U.N. Mission in Libya said it "deeply regrets that there was no response to the repeated international appeals and its own efforts for an immediate ceasefire."
   
 The new U.N. special envoy, Bernardino Leon, who is due to start his job on Sept. 1, said he might travel to Tripoli as early as this week.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/content/unidentified-war-planes-explosions-libyan-capital
« Last Edit: August 18, 2014, 08:02:49 pm by rangerrebew »